It's almost over....

The polls will finally close in about an hour. The commercials will stop. The phone calls will stop. The increasingly pleading (and annoying) texts will stop.

Some very good judicial candidates will win tonight -- but some very good judicial candidates will lose.

And it can't be helped: Some very good candidates are running against each other.

There will be time for analysis, and maybe even some second-guessing, later. And we're going to have to ask whether increased attention to judicial campaigns has coarsened the process.

There was a time -- I think -- when almost all judicial candidates were quite cordial to each other. For one thing, candidates shuffled around like penguins in a nature documentary, going from event to event, not in the same cars, mind you, but always seen together. Part of it was Stockholm Syndrome, or something like it; part of it was just plain common sense. If Candidate Smith won, Candidate Jones might wind up standing before her one day. If Candidate Jones won, Candidate Smith might have to appear in his courtroom.

That was my perception, anyway. Maybe I was just naive.

But I don't think so.

I've been paying careful attention to judicial elections -- not as a candidate, mind you, but working this beat -- since 2008. So this is time number six through the process. Maybe I've just gotten to see a little more, a little deeper, into the process, as the years have gone on.

But I don't think so.

I think this campaign may have been a little nastier, a little meaner, than judicial campaigns in past years -- more like other political races.

I hope we can talk about that in future posts.

But for now, I suggest it is time to stop and salute the considerable efforts of our judicial candidates, and hope that they will be content with, and proud of, their hard work, however things turn out when the votes are counted.